Poll is a ‘wake-up call’: Labor ministers

Labor ministers have blamed those within the party for a disastrous poll that shows it would lose a quarter of its caucus if the result is replicated at the next election, while Prime Minister Julia Gillard says she would let the numbers “wash through" as she concentrated on selling the $1 billion manufacturing jobs plan.

It also finds Ms Gillard is less popular than former PM Kevin Rudd to lead the ALP and more than half of voters now think Labor should change.

“I see a lot of polls come and go and I just don’t focus on them – we launched a major jobs plan yesterday and that’s the focus," Ms Gillard told Seven’s Sunrise program on Monday.

“If I spent my time worrying about, and commentating on, opinion polls, then I wouldn’t have the time to get my job done and the job is more important, so each and every day I just let that wash through and focus on what I need to do."

Labor’s primary vote slumped to 30 per cent and the Opposition stretched its two-party preferred lead to 12 points – which would see a quarter of ALP seats wiped out if that’s repeated at the September 14 election.

Dr Emerson told ABC Radio that the bad polling was a result of diversions and distractions, and said “unity of purpose is needed".

Ms Gillard said she hadn’t been given a “deadline" to turn things around.

“The Labor team is a team of people who came into politics because they believed in things – they believed in Labor values and putting them into operation," Ms Gillard said.

“That means we focus on things like jobs, we focus on education, getting every child a chance, we focus on health care.

“People would have come into Labor politics because of lifetime experiences that told them how important a good Labor government is to making a difference to life chances – it’s what motivates people, it’s what motivates me, not opinion polls."

Ms Gillard said Labor resolved the leadership issue in February 2012, brushing off speculation about Mr Rudd’s media appearances over the weekend.

Australian Council of Trade Union Secretary Dave Oliver said the union did not have a caucus vote and stopped short of voicing approval for the current leadership.

“This is a matter for the parliamentary Labor Party and the ACTU does not get a vote in these matters," Mr Oliver told ABC Radio.

Australian Workers Union National Secretary Paul Howes, who was instrumental in dumping Mr Rudd from the top job, said he regrets spending too much time worrying about polls.

“Let’s actually start focusing the national conversation back on the issues that matter, and not based on telephone samples of a couple of thousand voters taken over a weekend," Mr Howes told ABC TV.

Mr Howes brushed off suggestions that the union could “run dead" in its support of Ms Gillard if the leadership tensions in the Labor Party come to a head.

“Yesterday the Prime Minister announced a $1 billion rescue package for Australian industry, for Australian manufacturing. Of course we are supporting the prime minister because she stands the same things we stand for – good security Aussie jobs."

He batted away a suggestion by Mr Crean’s suggestion the poll was a “wake-up call" for the federal government.

“I am suffering from poll fatigue and I regret that in the past that I talked about polling. I don’t care about the polling, what I care about are the issues that the government stands for and the issues on which the Coalition stands for. That is what matters.

“What we care about is is that we have lost 130,000 jobs in manufacturing in the last five years and we have a government in Canberra that is acting to address that right here, right now."